The church of Bom Jesus de Matosinhos

Erected in the 16th century, at the behest of the University of Coimbra, which since 1542 has had the patronage of “Sam Salvador de Bouças”, the current church of Matosinhos came to replace an old and ruined temple hitherto existing, a few hundred meters away, in the place of Bouças – place where, in the Middle Ages, there was a monastery. The construction work for the new temple, Renaissance, was handed over, in 1559, to a famous imaginary / architect of that time: João de Ruão. The initial term foreseen for the construction was four years. It took twenty! And in the final phase of the building, between 1576 and 1579, another famous artist of the time, Tomé Velho, joined João de Ruão. Although the dimensions of the church have not changed significantly, very little remains of that initial temple.In fact, and with the exception of the columns that divide the three naves internally, today it is not possible to observe many vestiges of that first era. In fact, the church was profoundly altered in the 18th century. Not only did the chancel undergo profound changes in the first two decades of that century, but the rest of the building’s body would be significantly altered, starting in 1743, by the Italian architect Nicolau Nasoni who significantly raised the side walls and produced a fully Baroque facade new, undeniable scenic impact. Even during the 18th century, the interior of the church was covered, in a significant way, by gilded wood carving in the Baroque style, housing some of the best masterpieces of this art in our country. The conclusion of the work was celebrated with great festivities that lasted three days, preceded by a grand procession with the image to the place of Espinheiro, where three blessings were thrown into the sea, returning to the temple.This large temple, with three naves, is surrounded by a vast churchyard (wooded and meshed enclosure) that surrounds it and isolates it from the surrounding areas, thus giving it an air of welcome and welcome to enter the sphere of the sacred. In this churchyard, six chapels are built, all connected to the events of the Passion of Jesus Christ. Each of them represents a scene with human figures in natural size: The Agony in the Garden, The Prison of Jesus, The Flagellation, The Praetorium, The Ecce Homo and Jesus fallen under the weight of the Cross. It has been classified as a Property of Public Interest since 1982. 

The Image of Bom Jesus de Matosinhos

Although it is typologically possible to fit this sculpture in the transition from Romanesque to Gothic, and to date it between the last years of the 12th century and the first years of the 14th century, the legendary origin of this crucifix is ​​nevertheless deeply rooted in the community and popular tradition . According to her, the author of the image is Nicodemus, a biblical character who, with the help of José de Arimateia, removed Christ from the cross and deposited him in the tomb. Impressed by the events he had witnessed, and because he was very gifted for woodwork, Nicodemus decided to sculpt several images of the crucified Christ, being helped in his work by the circumstance of having the holy shroud – the fabric that, because it involved the bloody body of Christ, faithfully reproduced the image and features of Jesus. These sculptures will not, however, remain in your possession for a long time. Compromising evidence in the face of the persecution of Christians by the Jews and Romans, Nicodemus throws his images into the waters of the Mediterranean. The most beautiful and perfect of all, the one that best reproduced the face of Christ – by the way the first one that had been sculpted – after crossing the Straits of Gibraltar and furrowing the Atlantic near the Portuguese coasts, it ended up being deposited by the waters on the beach do Espinheiro, next to the place of Matosinhos. We were still, according to the legend, on the 3rd of May of the year 124. Once the image was collected on the beach by the population, it was found, however, that he lacked one of his arms. The missing limb was not found at the site and, due to the many arms that had been sent to the best craftsmen, none fit the amputated shoulder perfectly. And so, resigned, they leave the image preserved in the Monastery of Bouças, located not far from the place of its appearance.Fifty years later, on the beach, a poor woman collects firewood. Upon returning home, she observes, astonished, that a large piece of wood stubbornly jumps out of the fire whenever it was thrown at him. Miracle reinforced by having been a young daughter telling her mother that the wood in question was the missing member in the image of the Lord kept in the Monastery of Bouças. Fact that in itself would not end anything special were it not for the circumstance that, until that moment, the girl had been deaf-dumb from birth … Quickly applied to the crucifix, it was immediately found to be in the presence of the arm so far lost. Thus began the veneration of this image that, from a very early age, led to Bouças and then to Matosinhos (after its transfer in the 16th century to the new church), countless pilgrims and pilgrims fascinated with the growing fame of its miracles that, , have not stopped multiplying.Regardless of the legend, the oldest historical and documentary reference, so far known, to the image and devotion associated with it dates from 1342. What is probably the oldest existing image in Portugal of a crucified Christ, in wood and in natural size, will date from a period between the end of the 12th century and the beginning of the 14th century, in the transition from Romanesque to Gothic.Although it presents many “archaic” and Romanesque characteristics (weak anatomical realism of the body, rigid position along the cross, prudish concerns of the purity cloths that almost hide the whole body below the waist, hands that do not tighten with pain…), the his face, with greater artistic care and expressing pain, brings him closer to the Gothic spirit and tradition. The position of his eyes (“O Senhor de Matosinhos is cross-eyed” – affirms the popular tradition) is also inserted in this spirit, since we are before a mediating Christ who looks at the Father and at the same time. The long hair, the silver crown of thorns and the rich radiance are props introduced in the image in the 18th century, in the Baroque style. The Feast of the Lord of Matosinhos is celebrated on the Tuesday following the Sunday of the Holy Spirit (or Pentecost), a moving date on the calendar that occurs seven weeks after Easter. 

Devotion throughout the ages

last year

Devotion to Bom Jesus de Matosinhos extended to almost the entire country, but had deeper roots in northern Portugal.Above all, the simple and poor people, namely fishermen and people linked to the sea, invoked Bom Jesus and made promises to Him. Some of these promises consisted of taking a certain route inside or outside the temple (in the churchyard) in a penitential attitude, usually on your knees; others were less costly, as were the offerings of candles and wax figures from various organs of human anatomy and even people. The maritime shipowners of the city of Porto, when their ships left for long voyages, paid tribute to Bom Jesus de Matosinhos, to protect them. Seafarers from various parts of the north coast of the country were making pilgrimages to the temple taking the sails of their boats that they had promised Bom Jesus in hours of eminent tragedy and danger to their lives with the shipwreck surrounding them. These same seafarers, at other times, offered miniatures of their boats in which they had been saved with the help of the Lord. All of these offerings had a single purpose: to thank the graces that the Lord had given them. Among the people of the interior, more connected to agriculture, devotion was not less. To thank the favors or “miracles” done, they offered to the Lord wax figures representing various animals linked to agriculture, saved from disease or pests. They also brought great candles and, often, even the hair of women, also to thank “miracles”. Likewise, large quantities of oil were offered to light the lamp of Bom Jesus night and day.People from classes with more economic possibilities offered liturgical and decorative implements of silver and other valuable and noble materials, always as a thanksgiving. This devotion goes beyond the individual dimension and reaches collective dimensions, because, we can say, all the people of this area of ​​Matosinhos, Porto, Gaia and Maia incarnated this devotion to the Lord of Matosinhos. Proof of this are public prayers and processions held at difficult times for people, for the human community, with the intention of asking for “miracles”.Thus, in «June of the year 1526, on the occasion of a long period of storms that destroyed the crops and depleted the assets of the poor, sowing hunger, it was the image taken in a procession from Matosinhos to the city of Porto, thus being cause of calm because the air has calmed down ”(Cerqueira Pinto, António, in the aforementioned work, pages 169-170). On June 7, 1585, also due to storms and torrential rains, another procession was made to the city of Porto. In 1596, the reason and the result were the same. In 1644, on the 20th of June, the image went back to the «city of the Virgin» (this is how the city of Porto is known), but now at the request of the Senate of Porto, which asked the brotherhood of Bom Jesus to help with the public calamity that had affected the city. Around forty thousand people will have joined this procession. Here is the chronicle of the miracle that took place after the celebration of the Mass in the Cathedral of Porto, on this day:«The Mass is over, the flood has ended and all the storm has been removed from all the temporary cases and the rigor of time, falling so steadily and with so much calm that I admire the same people as suddenly; finally, the work of this Divinissimo Senhor ”(Manuel Pereira de Novais (Benedictine monk), in« Anacrisis Historial, 1915, vol. IV). In 1696, it was again the image of Porto to quell an epidemic that decimated the population of the city, full hospitals and cemeteries unable to support so many bodies, attributing the end of the calamity to Bom Jesus de Matosinhos. In 1733, the procession aimed to give a solemn air to the important works that had just been carried out in the church. The procession left, having crossed the Stone Bridge towards Leça da Palmeira and returned by a wooden one, on boats, built for the purpose. From there, he headed to Praia do Espinheiro, where three blessings were thrown: one over the sea, another in the direction of Porto and the last one to the people of Matosinhos. During the ceremony, there were those who had witnessed two miracles: in one of them, the fish, in the sea in front, jumped for joy on the waves of the beach; on the other, the sun would have stopped for a long time and the day would have gone on far beyond what is normal. After the blessings the image returned to the church(António Cerqueira Pinto, 1737, in History of the Prodigious Image of Christ Crucified …) . In June 1944, the image took to the streets to thank God for the end of World War II. In 1967, he left for the last time, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Apparitions of Our Lady in Fatima and to ask for peace in the world. One of the most characteristic vows of gratitude with which the Greeks thanked the healing god Euculápio, or other gods, for the grace of the cures, was the votive board, a small plate of baked clay that indicated the illness suffered by the offerer or the your relative. This use was linked to Greek medicine, which was generally practiced in the temple by medical priests.Catholic worship retained this pagan habit by offering votive boards or ex-votos to the saints, the Virgin or Christ who miraculously protected them. They were offered on the occasion of deadly illnesses, wars or shipwrecks, captivity and other extreme situations.The collection of ex-votes offered to Bom Jesus de Matosinhos is several dozen, narrating the «miracles» done to supplicants.They are boards of little artistic value and usually come from simple people.